Hornady FTX (325 grain) 45-70 factory ammo

Off the shelf ammo for all Rossi firearms.
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Hornady FTX (325 grain) 45-70 factory ammo

Post by pricedo »

I had quite a morning out on the range with my blue Remlin Guide Gun.
The head of the tang bolt that holds the butt stock on split in half.
I noticed a gap between the wood & metal before recoil had the opportunity to split the wooden butt stock.
Luckily I had the Remlin 1895GS that locked up solid on me during a shoot earlier in the week in the truck so I took out the tool box and transplanted the tang bolt from the GS into the G and continued shooting.
The cloud had a silver lining cause the Hornady factory 325 grain 45-70 FTX ammo was shooting consistent key hole groups for me at 100 yards from the blue Guide Gun which now sported a stainless steel tang bolt.
Has anyone tried the Hornady FTX factory ammo in their Rio Grande rifles? They are amazingly accurate in my Guide Gun. :mrgreen:
I've heard a lot of good reports about the accuracy of the Hornady FTX ammo but varying reports and assessments of how the "Gummy Bear" bullets performed once they got to the target animal.
Have any of you tried this ammo? Range? Hunting?
Comments?
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Re: Hornady FTX (325 grain) 45-70 factory ammo

Post by joec »

I used 20 of them only to set my scope up on my RG 45-70 though it didn't take but 5 to get it zeroed in at 50 yards. Now if I can find a 100 yard to set it for that I will be happy and they worked well for me. I might add I also shot a few of 405 gr Badman bullets loaded with 12.8 gr of Trailboss after that and they was dead on also as that will be my standard plinking load. Now next time I get to shoot at the 50 yard range I have a few other bullets and powders to test out. I also shot off 20 250 gr Hornady Monoflex ammo at the same time and it was also pretty close to dead on also.
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Re: Hornady FTX (325 grain) 45-70 factory ammo

Post by Dan 444 »

I've shot the Hornady FTX in my 1895 and 1895G and they are very accurate at 50 & 100 yds. I have not used them on game. For whitetails, I handload BTB and RD 425g over 51g/H335, bullet seated just to touch the lands...hammers the deer. Dang near as good as my 444. :D :D :D

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Re: Hornady FTX (325 grain) 45-70 factory ammo

Post by pricedo »

Follow up:
I pulled the lever and tried to pull the bolt of the Remlin stainless Guide gun that locked up while firing at the range ......no luck......got just enough clearance to see that the chamber was empty of ammo.....so I disgustedly put the gun back in the truck while mentally aiming some choice cuss words at Cerberus/Remington.
Turned out to be that the semi-circle shaped wooden lug on the end of the left side of the wooden stock grip that fits into the receiver had broken off and got jammed up in the hammer mechanism and fell out onto the floor immediately upon removal of the butt stock. After gravity obligingly removed the "wrench in the works" chunk of wood the action cycled perfectly.
My gunsmith said he could repair the butt stock by glass bedding it in place.
The w/m fit of the butt stock and the tang/receiver was terrible when I bought the gun and the resulting gap resulted in torque and vibration that cracked the thinnest part of the butt stock where the grip fits into the receiver and the wooden chunk jammed the gun.
There were other Remlin 1895GSs on the rack at the time with better w/m fit but the one I picked had the smoothest action........a coupla others I tried wouldn't even cycle.
Remlins......... gunsmiths dream come true $$$$$cash cows$$$$$. :twisted:
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Re: Hornady FTX (325 grain) 45-70 factory ammo

Post by Ranch Dog »

Lordy, good thing you have two of them! JM has got to be rolling over in his grave!
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Re: Hornady FTX (325 grain) 45-70 factory ammo

Post by Ninety Caliber »

pricedo wrote:I had quite a morning out on the range with my blue Remlin Guide Gun.
The head of the tang bolt that holds the butt stock on split in half.
I noticed a gap between the wood & metal before recoil had the opportunity to split the wooden butt stock.
Luckily I had the Remlin 1895GS that locked up solid on me during a shoot earlier in the week in the truck so I took out the tool box and transplanted the tang bolt from the GS into the G and continued shooting.
The cloud had a silver lining cause the Hornady factory 325 grain 45-70 FTX ammo was shooting consistent key hole groups for me at 100 yards from the blue Guide Gun which now sported a stainless steel tang bolt.
Has anyone tried the Hornady FTX factory ammo in their Rio Grande rifles? They are amazingly accurate in my Guide Gun. :mrgreen:
I've heard a lot of good reports about the accuracy of the Hornady FTX ammo but varying reports and assessments of how the "Gummy Bear" bullets performed once they got to the target animal.
Have any of you tried this ammo? Range? Hunting?
Comments?
Bought some of this ammo to shoot in my new Rio that I pick up tomorrow woo hoo!
Also hard they use Starline brass so I've got a head start on loading some cast boolits.
I hope I can shoot it first of next week :)


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Re: Hornady FTX (325 grain) 45-70 factory ammo

Post by pricedo »

Ninety Caliber wrote:
pricedo wrote:I had quite a morning out on the range with my blue Remlin Guide Gun.
The head of the tang bolt that holds the butt stock on split in half.
I noticed a gap between the wood & metal before recoil had the opportunity to split the wooden butt stock.
Luckily I had the Remlin 1895GS that locked up solid on me during a shoot earlier in the week in the truck so I took out the tool box and transplanted the tang bolt from the GS into the G and continued shooting.
The cloud had a silver lining cause the Hornady factory 325 grain 45-70 FTX ammo was shooting consistent key hole groups for me at 100 yards from the blue Guide Gun which now sported a stainless steel tang bolt.
Has anyone tried the Hornady FTX factory ammo in their Rio Grande rifles? They are amazingly accurate in my Guide Gun. :mrgreen:
I've heard a lot of good reports about the accuracy of the Hornady FTX ammo but varying reports and assessments of how the "Gummy Bear" bullets performed once they got to the target animal.
Have any of you tried this ammo? Range? Hunting?
Comments?
Bought some of this ammo to shoot in my new Rio that I pick up tomorrow woo hoo!
Also hard they use Starline brass so I've got a head start on loading some cast boolits.
I hope I can shoot it first of next week :)

I think your talking about the HSM brand "Bear Load" ammo which does use Starline brass.
The Hornady factory LEVERevolution 325 grain FTX ammo you speak of in your post uses shortened Hornady brass.
The LEVERevolution rounds would be too long to cycle in most leverguns if Hornady used standard SAAMI length brass to load the 325 grain FTX bullet because of the bullets pointed shape.
If you want Hornady full length cases you need to get Hornadys 350 grain FP load.
The shortened brass is fine if you intend to reload the 325 grain FTX bullets or heavy cast lead bullets in the cases.


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Re: Hornady FTX (325 grain) 45-70 factory ammo

Post by pricedo »

Ranch Dog wrote:Lordy, good thing you have two of them! JM has got to be rolling over in his grave!
I don't know about old JM........methinks he'd be pretty disgusted with what the hell dog and big green did to his namesake companies reputation.
Most of the rolling is being done by the gunsmiths..........rolling in money that is from fixing the thousands of units of unmitigated junk coming out of that Illion, NY factory. :evil:
From what I hear Remlins CS dept is on par with Rossis so after a few fruitless turnarounds the Remlin owners are either fixing the guns themselves or as in most cases getting their gunsmiths to do it........and the gunsmiths really don't mind...$$$$$$$$ :mrgreen:
Vintage purebred JM Marlins are worth money these days but you can't give a recycled Remlin away.
You (RD) probably got a good price for your JM 1895M.........likely more than I'd get for both my Remlin Guide Guns now.
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Re: Hornady FTX (325 grain) 45-70 factory ammo

Post by Wildwoodjk »

This is my first post as have joined the group.

Question for the Hornady 45 70 shooters of the factory 325 FTX. Has anyone put this round through a chronograph from the Rossi 20" barrel? I am working the ballistics for a Redfield Revolution scope. Based on the Hornady published data of 2050 fps and calculated loss in fps for the 20" barrel compared to the 24" it should be somewhere in the range of 1950 to 2010 fps. If this is the actual, the Redfield Revolution scope would have perfect range holdover points when sighted in at 100 yds for 150, 200, and 250 yds.

All in the pursuit of the Whitetail.

I am interested if anyone has actual range test info.


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Re: Hornady FTX (325 grain) 45-70 factory ammo

Post by pricedo »

Wildwoodjk wrote:This is my first post as have joined the group.

Question for the Hornady 45 70 shooters of the factory 325 FTX. Has anyone put this round through a chronograph from the Rossi 20" barrel? I am working the ballistics for a Redfield Revolution scope. Based on the Hornady published data of 2050 fps and calculated loss in fps for the 20" barrel compared to the 24" it should be somewhere in the range of 1950 to 2010 fps. If this is the actual, the Redfield Revolution scope would have perfect range holdover points when sighted in at 100 yds for 150, 200, and 250 yds.

All in the pursuit of the Whitetail.

I am interested if anyone has actual range test info.


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Short answer........... NO.

But I can tell you 2 things going in: 1) the ammo is very accurate in my 2 Remlin Guide Guns (which I have practically rebuilt from muzzle to crown since my last post on this thread). 2) heads up!....this is NOT light trapdoor ammo in case you are recoil sensitive. It is likely to be quite "sassy" fired in a light gun like the Rio Grande. :mrgreen:
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